Ryu Murakami, Japanese Novelist, Dies at 74

Japanese novelist and filmmaker Ryu Murakami has died at 74, his publisher Gentosha announced. The publisher said he died at home on October 17, 2026, and described his death as premature. His funeral was held privately for family, according to the announcement reported by the publisher’s account. Murakami was known for fiction that confronted violence, drugs, sex and youth culture, often through unsettling or provocative stories. His debut, Almost Transparent Blue, was published in 1976 while he was a university student. The novel won the 19th Gunzo New Writers Award and the 75th Akutagawa Prize, and went on to sell more than 3.5 million copies in hardcover and paperback editions, according to published accounts. His early success established a career that repeatedly examined alienation and social tensions in Japan. Coin Locker Babies, published in 1980, follows two boys abandoned as infants in station lockers. His 1997 novel In the Miso Soup takes a Japanese guide through Tokyo’s red-light district with an American serial killer. The book won the Yomiuri Literary Prize. Murakami also wrote and directed films, including Tokyo Decadence, an adaptation of his own work. Other...